Tumor receptor imaging: Overview and correlationwith nets

Nuclear medicine in NENs covers a pivotal role, both in diagnostics and in therapy, outlining the concept of theragnostic approach, bases on radiopharmaceuticals. The whole theme is based on the overexpression of somatostatin receptors (SSTRs), membrane molecule that allow the feasibility of this techniques, mediating the interaction between the drug and the targeted neoplastic cells, in order to depict it or to kill it, depending on the radiopharmaceutical’s purpose: this molecular background will be the main focus of this paper, from native somatostatin and receptors to the concept of internalization. Today, the gold standard in nuclear medicine in this context is represented by 68GaDOTA-peptides in association with PET/CT, but other important techniques and radiotracers will also be presented. Finally, some clinical condition, in which these techniques are employed, will be presented, such as GEP-NETs, lung NETs, unknown primary NETs (CUP lesions) and metastases.